


the way you look tonight

by TheBrokaryotes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Frank Sinatra - Freeform, M/M, gaaaaaaaaay, he makes a cameo, i wrote this in like two hours, keith has gay feelings™, lance is suave and hot but what else is new, oopsie, they dance and it's rly gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 04:16:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7743067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBrokaryotes/pseuds/TheBrokaryotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Some day, when I'm awfully low<br/>When the world is cold<br/>I will feel a glow just thinking of you<br/>And the way you look tonight."</p>
<p>In which Keith is a bad dancer but Lance gets by through the grace of God.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the way you look tonight

**Author's Note:**

> I have no explanation for this
> 
> enjoy
> 
> featured song is "The Way You Look Tonight" by Frank Sinatra

“Dance with me.”

Lance’s outstretched hand is a million miles away. There’s music playing from the tablet in his pocket, some cabana club tune from a hundred years ago, the perfect beat for a slow dance.

Keith’s vision is tunneled, world wonky and synapses misfiring all across his body. He balks. His chest is tight, his hands are clammy, he _cannot believe_ that he’s here.

When Lance said to meet him in the commons later that evening, he thought it would just be a repeat of last time, when all Lance had done was shown him a passing system, the brighter stars of which vaguely resembled a dick. The rest of their time then had been spent talking about dumb jokes and memes, the latter of which Keith still didn’t fully understand—he was almost certain Lance was making up at least 60% of them.

Or maybe it would be like that time he caught Lance curled into a rather pathetic looking ball in the corner by the window, eyes red and puffy as he insisted that no, he had not been crying and no, he wasn’t homesick or missing his mother, his home, his planet. That time, their hushed voices seemed to carry on for hours, forming a bubble around their bodies and encompassing them in memories of what life was like before they got hurled into space. Keith had slipped up then, let his guard down, made Lance a dumb promise he probably couldn’t keep.

_“You know I’ll always be there for you, right?” Keith murmured, and Lance’s eyes shimmered with doubt and inquiry._

_“I mean, you’re still insufferable. But we’re a team now. You’re not alone, even if you’re not at home. You’ve got us. Me.”_

_Lance blinked, the gears in his head turning. Keith looked away before he could fire a jab back at him, fill him with the reasons why that could never work, they would always be rivals even when they stood on the same side._

_It didn’t come. Instead, Keith felt a warmth on his hand, looked down to see slender fingers curling underneath his palm and squeezing gently. Lance’s thanks were echoes against the glass window, his smile tiny but full of hope, of comfort._

After that, the soft laughs and gentle words they shared threatened at every turn to betray their true feelings to one another. Keith desperately wanted to read into every one of Lance’s _you’re not so bad_ ’s and part of him ached to know if Lance could see exactly what he meant when he told him how important he was to the team. To Voltron.

_To me. You’re important to me._ If he did, he never said anything.

But this, this was different. Now, Lance didn’t look like a seventh grader with nothing to lose, a shit-eating grin on his face and that stupid glint in his eyes that just got Keith so riled; nor did he look helpless or afraid, lost in the hellish depths of his own brain trying to convince him that he was all by himself in the vast expanse of space, that home was too far away to even be real anymore.

Now he looks… not confident, but determined, eyes steely and focused, more so than Keith thinks he’s ever seen. His posture is relaxed, formal, his gestures deliberate, and nothing like the caved shoulders and erratic fidgeting that Keith was so used to witnessing.

He even looks _clean_ , like he actually brushed his hair, maybe even washed his face. His normally jagged nails, wrecked from constant nervous biting, are filed down smooth, and his jacket, unwashed for the literal _months_ they’d been on that ship, has none of its usual stains.

_He cleaned up… for me?_

Keith shakes the idea out of his mind, focusing all his available energy on the appropriate freak-out method towards the proposal his teammate had just laid out before him. Should he get irritated and chew Lance out, making sure he knows exactly how far he would chuck him into space if he even waltzed in Keith’s direction? Should he take the high road, simply declining and parting company with an acerbic taunt aimed at his dumb clean hair? Or maybe go for the _au naturale_ and just stand there like a moron, sweating profusely, like he’s been doing for oh g _od I waited to long to respond fuck fuck fuck—_

“Y-you… me… da—dance… what the hell?” Eloquent, Keith thinks. All he gets in response is a patient quirk of his teammate’s brow.

“Yes, Keith, dancing,” Lance explains, saucy attitude barely concealed. “It’s an Earth thing that humans do.”

“Yes— yeah, Lance, I fuckin’... got that, but what? Why?” Keith thinks his confusion is very warranted, unlike Lance’s request. Where’d he even get an idea like this? Had Keith led him on somehow after their conversation? Sure, maybe he wasn’t the best at concealing all of his Gay Mannerisms™, but come on— he wasn’t _that_ transparent.

Lance puffs up his cheeks in exasperation, like he wants to snap, but he quickly closes his eyes and lets out a hard breath.

“Look, I… I don’t really hate you anymore. I don’t think I ever did. I tried really hard to, but… after what you said to me last week, that time we spent... I don’t know, I guess you reminded me that we’re a team, that we’re— we’re friends. That you matter to me, and I matter to you, so—”

Lance’s resolve hardens, shoulders rolling back again. He’d be scary if he didn’t weigh a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. He flicks his wrist, drawing Keith’s attention back to his offer. His demand.

“Dance with me.”

Keith’s chest fills up with air and _something_ , something weightless and heavier than a dying sun. He forces himself to meet Lance’s eyes, an ocean of endless mysteries that Keith wanted to drown in.

For now, though, all he could do was swallow, throat scratchy, and reach up to take Lance’s hand in his.

Keith puts his left hand underneath Lance’s right because like hell he was letting this fucker lead, and carefully, carefully, his right hand comes to rest at Lance’s bony hip, fingers light like butterflies on a glass flower.

With an irritated but silent glance, clearly not too keen on being the follower here, Lance shifts his weight a little, moving a bit closer and setting his hand on Keith’s shoulder. His grip is solid, an anchor to ground Keith in the whimsical reality he had somehow mixed himself up in. He supposes he likes it, and he likes how soft Lance’s skin is against his comparably coarse palm, callouses dotting his joints and fingerpads.

Lance isn’t complaining about them when he clasps their hands together tighter, locking them in place, or when he fixes Keith with an impish smirk and begins to move. They sway in time to the music, or at least, they try to.

_Yes you’re lovely, with your smile so warm~_

Their beat is off for a few strides: it doesn’t help much that Keith is leading despite being shorter and actual shit at dancing.

“No, dude, your foot goes here,” Lance explains, tapping at the floor with his toe. Keith’s nostrils flare.

“I’m doing my best, leave me alone,” he insists, fingers digging into Lance’s hip. He’s warm, alive, and annoyingly handsome in the starlight.

The third time Keith steps on Lance’s toes is the clincher— the blue Paladin lets out a vexed sigh and switches their hands around, grabbing Keith’s wrist at his hip and placing it forcefully upon his shoulder, just as bony.

“Jeez, you’re almost as bad at this as you are with the whole ‘I say Vol, you say Tron’ ordeal,” Lance mutters, his hand firm at Keith’s hip, sliding around to his lumbar.

Keith’s fingers ruck the fabric of the other’s jacket, whole body suppressing the urge to shudder when Lance’s fingers brush across his spine. _This is stupid, this is stupid, he’s so close, this is stupid._

Their pace resumes, awkwardness far from gone, but quickly being transitioned into something more organic, more seamless. Keith still stares at his feet, mostly to avoid looking Lance directly in the eye, but also to keep tabs on their movements.

He finds, after a few paces, that he doesn’t have to, and when he glances up from under his fringe, his feet move just fine on their own, matching with Lance effortlessly.

_With each word, your tenderness grows, tearing my fear apart._

Keith begins to relax, feeling the rhythm of the song in his hips, his step, his brain. Serenity trickles through his body, tugging along his veins and threatening to fill him up with something other than the usual teenage angst. He loosens his iron grip at Lance’s shoulder, feeling the jacket fabric shift under his palm. His other hand still feels sweaty, but Lance doesn’t seem to notice or care.

_And that laugh that wrinkles your nose, it touches my foolish heart._

Lance’s words are abrupt. “You know, I really thought you’d reject me.”

Keith perks up, cocking an eyebrow. “Why?”

A shrug. A half pivot. “Don’t know, just… assumed you wouldn’t be interested.”

Keith lets out a chuffed sigh, punctuating it with a wry chuckle. “Well, I wasn’t at first,” he admits, gaze dropping to Lance’s waist, then finding somewhere else to stare at that wasn’t so close to his pants. “But, I suppose… I couldn’t really say no, because… I think so too.”

Lance’s quizzical expression tells Keith he needs to elaborate. “All those things you said, I think so too. We are teammates, we are… friends. You care about me and I care about you. I—”

Keith stops, throwing Lance off-kilter. They don’t move for a few seconds, Lance blinking in confusion as the music plays on. Suddenly Keith feels too sweaty again, his mouth dry, chest tight.

He wants to say it. He’s been planning the moment he’d say it, the inflection he’d use, the look he’d give Lance when he finally poured everything out, got it all out of his system. He’d thought about it three times since he’d woken up that day, but now that the opportunity for it all to come to light presented itself, Keith couldn’t do it. He couldn’t just _say_ that he’d liked Lance since they first met at the Garrison, couldn’t explain exactly _why_ he’d pretended not to remember him when they met again at the crash site, or why, after weeks and months of hating each other, suddenly they were dancing alone in the dark in the middle of the night. He could barely make sense of it himself, so how could he explain it Lance?

Keith releases Lance’s hand and shoulder, vision going blurry as the hard thing in his chest expands, inflates his lungs with fire and fear. “I… I just…” Sirens blare in his head. He’s going to malfunction if he doesn’t do something, quickly.

“Keith,” Lance chirps, and it snaps at Keith’s attention. He sees Lance’s hands rising, feels them ghosting over his cheeks before they come to rest at his neck, cupping his chin. One of his thumbs runs across Keith’s jawline, and Keith can’t keep himself from shivering.

“I get it. I know.”

That was all Keith thought he needed. He just needed to know that Lance could see how important he was, how much Keith wanted him, needed him, how _fucking gay_ he was for him. That validation was the best he could ask for. 

He didn’t know, however, how badly he needed to just kiss Lance’s stupid face until it happened, until he felt Lance's mouth on his and the heat of his lips, his breath, on his skin, tasted him for the first time in a sequence of many to come. He didn’t know, until he reached his arms up and around Lance’s neck, tugging him down and tilting his head.

_‘Cause I love you. Just the way you look tonight._

Their teeth click, and Lance’s tongue is touching Keith’s and it’s kind of gross, but it’s okay, because Keith has never felt this happy in his life, never felt the same wicked concoction of evaporating nerves and relief and pure bliss in his belly ever before. When they separate, Keith can’t handle it, chasing after Lance’s lips with another quick peck before his breathlessness forces him to gasp.

“I know,” Lance repeats, eyes clouded, smile arching and gilded with mirth. Keith wants to ask how, how could he know, but he already has his answer.

Keith smiles, and as the bundle of disgusting emotions in his gut begins to subside, he tilts his head a bit to the side.

“Dance with me?” he queries. Lance obliges with delight.

They dance for another few songs, each one filled with the same cheesy 50’s vibe as the first (“Seriously, dude, what’s with this Golden Ages stuff?” “Come on! Don’t tell me this isn’t mad cool. Sinatra is where it’s at, bro.”). They dance and kiss, and when they get tired of dancing and kissing, they take the party to Lance’s room, where there’s a lot more kissing than dancing.

They left the music on for their entire make out session. Keith never imagined he’d be able to swap spit with anyone to the Rat Pack, but hey, they were in space and he was half naked in Lance’s bed, so there is no real conformity here.

Lance is sound and peaceful cradled in Keith’s arms, breath tickling at the other’s clavicle. With his face buried in Lance’s hair, Keith relishes in the fresh smell of shampoo, cologne, and of Lance himself. He felt peace, a peace long coming and well deserved, one he hoped he could preserve. He wanted to freeze this moment, this evening, in time, to keep it on display in his mind until the end of his days.

Lance shifts, nose nuzzling at Keith’s skin. He’s beautiful, and Keith smiles, shutting his eyes.

_Mm, just the way you look tonight._

**Author's Note:**

> did they do it? did they frickle frackle? we just don't know


End file.
